Hansel Williams

Name: Hansel Williams

Gender: Male

Age: 18

Grade: 12

School: Aurora High School

Hobbies and Interests: Farming, Tending to Animals, Reading his Bible, Art, Phys Ed.

Appearance: Hansel stands at 6’1” and weighs 183lbs. He has black hair that he does not ever brush, leaving it in its natural curly state, and dark brown eyes. His skin, what little shows through his attire, is darkened brown from exposure to sun.

Hansel’s dress code is heavily influenced by what his father swore was the quintessential ‘rancher’s son’ movies, namely John Wayne flicks. By the time that Hansel was old enough to dress himself it was nothing but stetsons, button downs, string neck ties and Wrangler jeans. To counterbalance his tendency to stutter, he even adapted The Duke’s slow, easy method of speech, complete with a Texan twang.

Biography: Born to Molly and Jim Williams, a pair of ranchers in the open plains of Texas, Hansel was born into the rancher’s life and grew up accordingly. Heaven’s Door was a ranch resting twenty-five minutes north of Canadian, Texas, that had belonged to the Williams clan for generations. It was handed down to Jim when Hansel’s uncle, Chett, was hit by a train while stone drunk. The acquisition of the ranch was something that was heatedly debated among the Williams family for years afterwards, as Jim had often been a rebellious soul, working in a casino in Seattle and partying too often for the family’s liking, but having Hansel and a full grown business thrust at him at the same time sobered the man considerably.

Hansel grew up under the tutelage of his Catholic mother and conservative father before going to school. Alongside his chores of keeping animals fed and healthy and tending to guests, Hansel learned all about Heaven, Hell, and what it took to go to either place. He learned that evolution was a lie by folks who did not believe in the good Lord’s prayer. When his lessons were done, he would sit in front of the television with his father, watching and rewatching classics like Stagecoach while his father explained the difference between good Americans and left-wing radicals.

When he first went to elementary school, he was given a rude awakening before even stepping into the classroom for the first time. On the long bus ride to school, they noticed the cowboy hats and little belts. Most importantly, they noticed his trouble with words sometimes - words that began with P and S and a hard G. They mocked him around the schoolyard, imitating the wide-eyed look Hansel would get when he could not quite force the words out. When Hansel returned home scraped from one such encounter, his mother and father marched him to the principal, demanding that he be pulled from the school, insisting that the teacher be punished and threatening to sue. They pulled Hansel from the public school system, sat him down, and resolved to teach him themselves.

Hansel was twelve years old when he killed his first living being. When a dog he had grown up with was sick with cancer, Hansel took the gun offered by his father, pointed it at the dog and pulled the trigger without pause. Hesitation would have been frowned upon by Jim Williams, and so he did not let his father see it. If he cried during the night, his parents did not speak of it. Putting down sick creatures became a regular chore for Hansel from that point forth.

However, the romanticism and fantasy of dude ranches, on their last legs because of the advancing wall of technology, finally crippled the business when Hansel turned sixteen. The lack of vacationers, coupled with Jim’s gambling habits and love of hitting the city any chance he got, put enough strain on the family to force them to pack up and sell the place. Because of his reputation as a shark for card counters and his keen eye for gambling, Jim only had to inquire about his old position after a fruitless search through Texas and was offered an opening as a Pit Boss rather than the low-level dealer he had been in his previous days. The offer settled the debate on where to move, and despite Molly’s protests, they carted off to Washington. Hansel was enrolled in Aurora High, thrust once more into a world where he needed to speak slowly and deeply in order to avoid the hard G’s and S’s and P’s.

In school he made few friends, contenting himself with long walks of solitude and books about open ranges. He became incredibly introverted when the strain of the move, and the tiny apartment him and his parents shared, began to wear on his folks notably. His worldview was shaped around his parents, and little the teachers did or said could dislodge him from the notion that they were infallibly correct and the school system was flawed, resulting in poor grades and unpopular opinions. Of particular note was any class that taught social studies or was geared towards discussion - Religion, Political Sciences, and Law. Hansel’s participation marks suffered greatly in these classes, teachers citing a hesitance to volunteer answers, refusal to speak when called upon, and an argumentative nature when spoken to in private about his work.

During group presentations, Hansel kept his eyes glued to cue cards, read each word slowly and carefully, and grew red when making mistakes. Absences from school climbed on Hansel’s record when a presentation was taking place, his parents gladly willing to blame his sudden illnesses on stress, on the lies he was being fed in school, anything but facing Hansel’s shyness and stuttering problem.

Despite this, Hansel flourished in two subjects - Art, and Gym. Teachers who taught Hansel in Physical Education often praised his ability to focus intensely on a task at hand, whether it be dodgeball or distance running. This resulted in coaches for the track team and the football team to approach him in quiet, probing for interest. They were always turned away by the boy’s polite refusal and stony silence. In Art, Hansel demonstrated an incredible ability to create perspective - particularly in landscapes. He preferred sketching with charcoal, but is also competent with colouring and pastels, becoming known to obsess over a piece until he felt it was ‘right’.

Early in grade 11 Hansel visited a guidance counselor, expressing an interest to work with animals in a medical capacity. During the hour long meeting, Hansel had his options narrowed down from “something to do with animals” to hoping to open an animal shelter in the city, with an interest in shadowing an employee of the humane society. With the counselor’s assistance, Hansel lined up a summer job working for the local shelter, where he showed an interest in caring for animals and has been invited back to apply for a full time position when he graduates high school.

Advantages: Hansel has known hard, physical labour, and knows his way around firearms and tools that one would find strewn about the tool shed of a ranch. His body is hardened with callouses and scars, and as a result he has a higher capacity for pain than most other children his age. Because of his knack for drawing, Hansel tends to be observant, picking up on visual details quickly.

Disadvantages: Hansel holds his ideals, shaped from a lifetime of homeschooling, close to him and is far too stubborn to consider other viewpoints. This makes making friends hard, effectively alienating him among the school populace, due to his reluctance to trust and lack of ability to consider other peoples’ well-being above his own. Finally, Hansel’s lack of formal education and sheltered existence makes other people’s motives an enigma to him.

Designated Number: Male student No. 076

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Designated Weapon: FAMAS

Conclusion: Wow. Just wow. Is the cowboy here for real? I like a good ol' Duke VHS as much as the next moderate western movie enthusiast, but I feel bad if parents are actually raising their kids on nothing but. Kinda reminds me why this organization exists. Whoops, I'm rambling... aaaaaanywho, I'm pretty sure John Wayne didn't have a gun like THIS. Ride 'em, cowboy. - Dennis Lourvey

Evaluations


Handled by: NotAFlyingToy

Kills: Daniel Whitten, Mallory McCormick, Kyle Fitzpatrick, Theodore Fletcher, Logan Cadagon, Rebecca Kiesling, Marcus Leung, Virgil Jefferson-Davis, Christopher Harlin, Leona Van Kamp, Mirabella Strong, Gray Emerson, Joe Carrasco, Katarina Konipaski, Zubin Wadia

Killed By: Zubin Wadia

Collected Weapons: FAMAS (designated weapon, to Gray Emerson), Officially Licensed Indiana Jones Replica Whip (from Daniel Whitten, abandoned), Winchester 88 (from Cody Patton), Saiga-12 (from Virgil Jefferson-Davis), Browning Hi-Power 9mm Handgun (from Christopher Harlin, abandoned), Masden SMG (BKA weapon)

Allies: Andi Victorino

Enemies: Theodore Fletcher, Tyler Lucas, Adonis Alba, Mallory McCormick, Amaranta "Mara" Montalvo, Claire Monaghan, Aileen Aurora Abdallah, Owen Kay, Michael Mitchellson, Garrett Wilde, Ami Flynn, Mirabella Strong, Madeline Wilcox, Christopher Harlin, Kyran Dean, Joe Carrasco, Virgil Jefferson-Davis, Marcus Leung, Gray Emerson, Sean Mulcahy

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes: "I did. I did win." -- After 'beating' Garrett Wilde in a fight.

"I'm alive. You're not. That's the only definition of better that matters." -- To the corpse of Leona Van Kamp

Other/Trivia

 * Hansel was the first student shot in V5 - in the shoulder, by Theodore Fletcher.
 * A good chunk of Hansel's threads are either allusions to or quotes from Western Films, specifically John Wayne movies.
 * Hansel won the February 2014 Best Kill Award for killing Theodore Fletcher.
 * Hansel won the August 2014 Best Kill Award for killing Virgil Jefferson-Davis (tying with Ami Flynn).
 * In V5, Hansel set a record for most on-island threads of any SOTF Character in history for a single version. In V6, this record was tied by Alessio Rigano.
 * As of Katarina Konipaski's death, Hansel had the most kills in a single version, which he held until V7, when it was broken by Erika Stieglitz.

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Hansel, in chronological order.

The Past:
 * Sometimes Goliath Has A Point
 * Birds of a Feather

Pre-Game: Prom:
 * Walk slow, talk slow, keep yer head low
 * Quixotic
 * La Reine Du Bal

V5: Related Threads in Meanwhile:
 * Deep Breath, Deep Breath
 * Courage is being scared, and saddling up anyway
 * Far Below Par
 * Stagecoach, and other vehicles
 * There ain't no more cowboys, only men with violent hearts
 * Decathect
 * Ain't No Reprievement Gonna Be Found Otherwise
 * Fluffytown
 * A man deserves a second chance, but keep an eye on him.
 * Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
 * The Things We Lost In The Fire
 * If I had known this, I would have put that patch on 35 years ago.
 * Fill your hand, you son of a bitch.
 * Learned something from yesterday.
 * All Battles Are Fought By Scared Men Who'd Rather Be Some Place Else
 * Arcadia
 * The Faster The Treadmill
 * Tomorrow is the most important thing in life.
 * The Mad and Hungry Dogs
 * Lucena Position
 * Gethsemane
 * I don't feel that we did wrong
 * I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a hand-on
 * I Was Once Alive
 * The Society of the Spectacle
 * If you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.
 * The big tough boy on the side of right? That's me.
 * Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien
 * There are some things a man just can't run away from.
 * All I do is sell sincerity.
 * Sudden Life
 * Unless you were Maureen O'Hara.
 * Tears in the Rain
 * Paradise (V5 Endgame)
 * A Macabre Play

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Hansel Williams. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''

I will always treasure the fear I struck into Naft's heart when he learned that I'm from Texas before I gave him my opinion on Hansel. - backslash

For the record on what that opinion actually is, since I realized I never gave it here: I think Hansel is pretty great. I was all prepared to hate him just based on his profile, but Naft really brought some depth to an archetypal (and some might say stereotypical) character. Hansel had a lot going on internally just as much as he did externally, and I'd go so far as to say that it's the internal stuff that really makes me like him as a character more than the other stuff. I think as soon as the phrase "You could be wrong" became a recurring thing in his narrative, that's when Hansel started to come into his own. Being inside his head so much means that I'm kind of on his side while reading, even when I hate the things that he's doing. All things considered, I think that's enough to make him a really well-written, effective villain, divisive as he is among handlers. - backslash

Now that I'm a long way removed from writing Hansel, and I've had time to reflect upon him, I think I can write this note as impartially as I can. Because I know that handlers will invariably move through the wiki, and because Hansel holds a few records that some might aspire to break, I figure instead of commenting on the character himself - you can make your own judgement on him, and I invite you to share them with me - I'll reflect on the time I had writing him. I wrote Hansel for a year and a half, which is a long time to spend in the head of one character. Over that time, I grew as a writer, made a ton of fantastic friends, and had the supreme privilege of being seen as a worthy writing partner to wrap up so many excellent stories with a death thread. I always tried to make the kill/death threads about the person dying rather than their killer, and I hope with all my heart that I succeeded. I think it's important that to write a character that you intend to be a 'player', you need to be easy to work with. Take suggestions, make it about them, not you, and don't be afraid to take a back seat. Also, going for records over writing a good character is terrible in terms of priorities, so always make your goal to write something you can stomach reading.

Thanks for everything, SOTF. I hope I can write with you again someday. - NotAFlyingToy